Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina (/truːˈhiːjoʊ/; Spanish: [rafaˈel leˈoniðas tɾuˈxiʝo]; 24 October 1891 – 30 May 1961), nicknamed El Jefe (Spanish: [el ˈxefe], "The Chief" or "The Boss"), was a Dominican politician, soldier and dictator, who ruled the Dominican Republic from February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961.[2] He served as president from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952, ruling for the rest of the time as an unelected military strongman under figurehead presidents.[Note 1] His 31 years in power, to Dominicans known as the Trujillo Era (Spanish: El Trujillato), are considered one of the bloodiest eras ever in the Americas, as well as a time of a personality cult, when monuments to Trujillo were in abundance. Trujillo and his regime were responsible for many deaths, including between 1,000 and 30,000 in the infamous Parsley massacre.[3][4][5][Note 2][Note 3]

During this long period of oppression and death, the Trujillo government extended its policy of state terrorism beyond national borders. Notorious examples of Trujillo’s reach abroad are the unsuccessful assassination attempt in Caracas against Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt (1960), the abduction and subsequent disappearance in New York City of the Spaniard Jesús Galíndez (1956), the murder of writer José Almoina in Mexico, also a Spaniard, and crimes committed against Cubans, Costa Ricans, Nicaraguans, Puerto Ricans, as well as United States citizens.[8]

The Trujillo era unfolded in a HispanicCaribbean environment that was particularly fertile for dictatorial regimes.[Note 4] In the countries of the Caribbean Basin alone, his dictatorship was concurrent, in whole or in part, with those in Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela, and Haiti. In retrospect, the Trujillo dictatorship has been characterized as more prominent and more brutal than those that rose and fell around it.[10]

Trujillo's rule brought the country a great deal of stability and prosperity throughout his 31-year reign. The price, however, was high—civil liberties were non-existent and human rights violations were routine. Due to the longevity of Trujillo's rule, a detached evaluation of his legacy is difficult. Supporters of Trujillo claim that he reorganized both the state and the economy, and left vast infrastructure to the country. From a moral point of view, however, a detached evaluation is not difficult at all. Everyone agrees on the brutality of his rule, and critics also claim that much of the country's wealth wound up in the hands of his family or close associates.[citation needed]

In 1897, at age six, Trujillo was registered in the school of Juan Hilario Meriño. One year later he transferred to the school of Broughton, where he became a pupil of Eugenio María de Hostos and remained there for the rest of his primary schooling. At the age of 16, Trujillo got a job as a telegraph operator, which he held for about three years. Shortly after Trujillo turned to crime—cattle stealing, check counterfeiting, and postal robbery. He spent several months in prison, which did not deter Trujillo, as he later formed a violent gang of robbers called the 42.[15][16]

In 1916, the United States occupied the Dominican Republic due to threats of defaulting on foreign debts. The occupying force soon established a Dominican army constabulary to impose order. Trujillo joined the National Guard in 1918 and trained with the U.S. Marines.[17]
Seeing opportunity, Trujillo impressed the recruiters and won promotion from cadet to general and commander-in chief of the Army in only nine years.[16]

A rebellion (or coup d'état[18][19]) against President Horacio Vásquez broke out in February 1930 in Santiago. Trujillo secretly cut a deal with rebel leader Rafael Estrella Ureña; in return for Trujillo letting Estrella take power, Estrella would allow Trujillo to run for president in new elections. As the rebels marched toward Santo Domingo, Vásquez ordered Trujillo to suppress them. However, feigning "neutrality", Trujillo kept his men in barracks, allowing Estrella's rebels to take the capital virtually unopposed. On 3 March, Estrella was proclaimed acting president, with Trujillo confirmed as head of the police and of the army. As per their agreement, Trujillo became the presidential nominee of the Patriotic Coalition of Citizens (Spanish: Coalición patriotica de los ciudadanos), with Estrella as his running mate.[20] The other candidates became targets of harassment by the army. When it became apparent that the army would not allow anyone other than Trujillo to campaign unhindered, the other candidates pulled out. Ultimately, the Trujillo-Estrella ticket was proclaimed victorious with an implausible 99 percent of the vote.[21] In a note to the State Department, American ambassador Charles Boyd Curtis wrote that Trujillo received far more votes than actual voters.[22]

Three and a half weeks after Trujillo ascended to the Presidency the destructive Hurricane San Zenon hit Santo Domingo and left 2,000 dead. As a response to this disaster, Trujillo placed the Dominican Republic under martial law and began to rebuild the city. After the city was rebuilt he renamed the capital of the Dominican Republic Ciudad Trujillo (Trujillo City) in his honor and had streets, monuments, and landmarks to honor him throughout the country. [23]. On 16 August 1931, the first anniversary of his inauguration, Trujillo made the Dominican Party the nation's sole legal political party. However, the country had effectively become a one-party state with Trujillo's swearing-in. Government employees were required by law to "donate" 10 percent of their salaries to the national treasury,[24][25] and there was strong pressure on adult citizens to join the party. Party members had to carry a membership card, nicknamed the "palmita" as the cover had a palm tree on it, and a person could be arrested for vagrancy without one. Those who did not join or contribute to the party did so at their own risk. Opponents of the régime were mysteriously killed.[26]
In 1934 Trujillo, who had promoted himself to Generalissimo of the army, was up for re-election. By this time, there was no organized opposition left in the country, and he was elected as the sole candidate on the ballot. In addition to the widely rigged (and regularly uncontested) elections, which never saw a functioning opposition, he instated "civic reviews", with large crowds shouting their loyalty to the government.[24]

In 1936, at the suggestion of Mario Fermín Cabral, Congress voted overwhelmingly to change the name of the capital from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo. The province of San Cristóbal was renamed "Trujillo", and the nation's highest peak, Pico Duarte, was rebaptized Pico Trujillo. Statues of "El Jefe" were mass-produced and erected across the Republic, and bridges and public buildings were named in his honor. The nation's newspapers had praise for Trujillo as part of the front page, and license plates included slogans such as "¡Viva Trujillo!" and "Año Del Benefactor De La Patria" (Year of the Benefactor of the Nation.) An electric sign was erected in Ciudad Trujillo so that "Dios y Trujillo" could be seen at night as well as in the day. Eventually, even churches were required to post the slogan "Dios en cielo, Trujillo en tierra" (God in Heaven, Trujillo on Earth). As time went on, the order of the phrases was reversed (Trujillo on Earth, God in Heaven). Trujillo was recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize by his admirers, but the committee declined the suggestion.[citation needed]

Era de Trujillo sign: "In this household, Trujillo is a national symbol"

Trujillo was eligible to run again in 1938, but, citing the United States example of two presidential terms, he stated: "I voluntarily, and against the wishes of my people, refuse re-election to the high office."[27] In fact, a vigorous reelection campaign had been launched in the middle of 1937 but the international uproar that followed the Haitian massacre later that year forced Trujillo to announce his "return to private life".[28] Consequently, the Dominican Party nominated Trujillo's handpicked successor, 71-year-old vice-president Jacinto Peynado, with Manuel de Jesús Troncoso as his running mate. They appeared alone on the ballot in the 1938 election. Trujillo kept his positions as generalissimo of the army and leader of the Dominican Party. It was understood that Peynado was merely a puppet, and Trujillo still held all governing power in the nation. Peynado increased the size of the electric "Dios y Trujillo" sign and died on 7 March 1940, with Troncoso serving out the rest of the term. However, in 1942, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt having run for a third term in the United States, Trujillo ran for president again and was elected unopposed. He served for two terms, which he lengthened to five years each. In 1952, under pressure from the Organization of American States, he ceded the presidency to his brother, Héctor. Despite being officially out of power, Trujillo organized a major national celebration to commemorate twenty-five years of his rule in 1955. Gold and silver commemorative coins were minted with his image.[citation needed]

Rafael Trujillo (right) and guest Anastasio Somoza at the inauguration of Héctor Trujillo as president in 1952

Brutal oppression of actual or perceived members of the opposition was the key feature of Trujillo's rule right from the beginning in 1930 when his gang, "The 42", under its leader Miguel Angel Paulino, drove through the streets in their red Packard "carro de la muerte" ("car of death").[29] Trujillo also maintained an execution list of people throughout the world who he felt were his direct enemies or whom he felt had wronged him. He did even at one point allow an opposition party to legally form and permitted them to operate openly. This was mainly so he could identify his opposition and arrest or kill them.[30]

Trujillo was known for his open-door policy, accepting Jewish refugees from Europe, Japanese migration during the 1930s, and exiles from Spain following its civil war. He developed a uniquely Dominican policy of racial discrimination, Antihaitianismo ("anti-Haitianism"), targeting the mostly-black inhabitants of his neighboring country and those within the Platano Curtain, including many Afro-Dominican citizens. At the 1938 Évian Conference the Dominican Republic was the only country willing to accept many Jews and offered to accept up to 100,000 refugees on generous terms.[31] In 1940 an agreement was signed and Trujillo donated 26,000 acres (110 km2) of his properties for settlements. The first settlers arrived in May 1940; eventually some 800 settlers came to Sosua and most moved later on to the United States.[31]

Refugees from Europe broadened the Dominican Republic's tax base and added more whites to the predominantly mixed-race nation. The government favored white refugees over others while Dominican troops expelled illegal aliens, resulting in the 1937 Parsley Massacre of Haitian immigrants.[citation needed]

The Trujillo regime greatly expanded the Vedado del Yaque, a nature reserve around the Yaque del Sur River. In 1934 he banned the slash-and-burn method of clearing land for agriculture, set up a forest warden agency to protect the park system, and banned the logging of pine trees without his permission. In the 1950s the Trujillo regime commissioned a study on the hydroelectric potential of damming the Dominican Republic's waterways. The commission concluded that only forested waterways could support hydroelectric dams, so Trujillo banned logging in potential river watersheds. After his assassination in 1961, logging resumed in the Dominican Republic. Squatters burned down the forests for agriculture, and logging companies clear-cut parks. In 1967, President Joaquín Balaguer launched military strikes against illegal logging.[25]

The extensive development of the Dominican military during World War II, a buildup that continued unabated after the war with the assistance of arms-dealing countries such as Brazil and Sweden, disturbed the Caribbean peace even as the global conflict ended. Military might, much of its surplus merchandise such as P-51 Mustang fighters and B-26 Marauder bombers, maintained Trujillo as the unassailable master of the Dominican Republic. Trujillo's war-based military complex, most notably its air capability, kept neighboring Haiti in a near-constant state of tension. The threat of being bombed by the Dominican Republic extended to Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela, among other places, as long as Rafael Trujillo retained his capricious control until 1961.[33]

Early on, Trujillo determined that Dominican financial affairs had to be put in order, and that included ending the United States's role as collector of Dominican customs—a situation that had existed since 1907 and was confirmed in a 1924 convention signed at the end of the occupation.[citation needed]

Negotiations started in 1936 and lasted four years. On 24 September 1940, Trujillo and the American Secretary of State Cordell Hull signed the Hull–Trujillo Treaty, whereby the United States relinquished control over the collection and application of customs revenues, and the Dominican Republic committed to deposit consolidated government revenues in a special bank account to guarantee repayment of foreign debt. The government was free to set custom duties with no restrictions.[34]

This diplomatic success gave Trujillo the occasion to launch a massive propaganda campaign that presented him as the savior of the nation. A law proclaimed that the Benefactor was also now the Restaurador de la independencia financiera de la Republica (Restorer of the Republic's financial independence).[35]

Trujillo with President Magloire of Haiti. Hector and Ramfis Trujillo in attendance

Haiti had historically occupied what is now the Dominican Republic, from 1822–1844. Encroachment by Haiti was an ongoing process, and when Trujillo took over, specifically the northwest border region had become increasingly "Haitianized."[36] The border was poorly defined. In 1933, and again in 1935, Trujillo met the Haitian President Sténio Vincent to settle the border issue. By 1936, they reached and signed a settlement. At the same time, Trujillo plotted against the Haitian government by linking up with General Calixte, Commander of the Garde d'Haiti, and Élie Lescot, at that time the Haitian ambassador in Ciudad Trujillo (Santo Domingo).[36] After the settlement, when further border incursions occurred, Trujillo initiated the Parsley Massacre.

Known as La Masacre del Perejil in Spanish, the massacre was started by Trujillo in 1937. Claiming that Haiti was harboring his former Dominican opponents, he ordered an attack on the border that slaughtered tens of thousands of Haitians as they tried to escape. The number of dead is still unknown, though it is now calculated between 1,000 and 30,000.[Note 7] The Dominican military used machetes to murder and decapitate many of the victims; they also took people to the port of Montecristi, where many victims were thrown into the ocean to drown with their hands and feet bound.[38] It has been argued that the number of dead may have been less than commonly reported. Numbers of deaths reported at the time range from as little as 1,000 to 12,000—but this is significantly lower than the higher 30,000 estimate commonly reported. This high estimate has been attributed by some to the propaganda of anti-Trujillo exiles who wanted to rally international support against the dictator. The earliest report, dated 11 October 1937, by the United States consul in Cap-Haïtien, puts the number at “almost one thousand.” On 6 November 1937 an official diplomatic note from the Haitian to the Dominican government speaks of 2,040. By 19 December, a Haitian minister in Washington gave the number 12,168. Similar figures of 12,000 have been given at later dates by Haitian President Élie Lescot in 1953 and by Haitian historian Jean Price-Mars who cited 12,136 deaths and 2,419 injuries. On the first of January 1938, the Dominican foreign minister offered a figure of 547 dead. In 1975, Joaquín Balaguer, the Dominican Republic's interim Foreign Minister at the time of the massacre, put the number of dead at 17,000.[39][40]

The Haitian response was muted, but its government eventually called for an international investigation. Under pressure from Washington, Trujillo agreed to a reparation settlement in January 1938 of US$750,000. By the next year, the amount had been reduced to US$525,000 (US$8.95 million in 2018); 30 dollars per victim, of which only 2 cents were given to survivors, due to corruption in the Haitian bureaucracy.[27][41]

In 1941, Lescot, who had received financial support from Trujillo, succeeded Vincent as President of Haiti. Trujillo expected that Lescot would be his puppet, but Lescot turned against him. Trujillo unsuccessfully tried to assassinate him in a 1944 plot, and then published their correspondence to discredit him.[36] Lescot was exiled after a 1946 palace coup.[citation needed]

In 1947 Dominican exiles, including Juan Bosch, had concentrated in Cuba. With the approval and support of Cuba's Grau government, an expeditionary force was trained with the intention of invading the Dominican Republic and overthrowing Trujillo. However, international pressure, including from the United States, made the exiles abort the expedition.[42] In turn, when Fulgencio Batista was in power, Trujillo initially supported anti-Batista supporters of Carlos Prío Socarrás in Oriente Province in 1955, however weapons Trujillo sent were soon inherited by Fidel Castro's insurgents when Prío allied with Castro. After 1956, when Trujillo saw that Castro was gaining ground, he started to support Batista with money, planes, equipment, and men. Trujillo, convinced that Batista would prevail, was very surprised when he showed up as a fugitive after being ousted. Trujillo kept Batista until August 1959 as a "virtual prisoner".[43] Only after paying between three and four million U.S. dollars could Batista leave for Portugal, which had granted him a visa.[43]

Castro made threats to overthrow Trujillo, and Trujillo responded by increasing the budget for national defense. A foreign legion formed to defend Haiti, as many expected that Castro might invade the Haitian part of the island first and remove François Duvalier as well. On June 14, 1959, an abortive invasion to topple Trujillo began. On that day, a plane with Dominican markings left Cuba and landed at the Cordillera Central in the Dominican Republic. On board were 225 men led by a Dominican named Enrique Jimenez Moya and a Cuban named Delico Gomez Ochoa, both of whom were friends of Castro. The invasion force was composed of men from various Latin American countries and Spain. Some Americans also participated. As soon as the invaders landed, they were met by soldiers of the Dominican Army, and 30 to 40 men escaped.[citation needed]

A week later, another group of invaders boarded two yachts and was escorted by Cuban gunboats to Great Inagua, in the Bahamas, heading for the Dominican coast. Instead, the group was spotted by Dominican soldiers who blasted the yacht to pieces. Trujillo ordered his son, Ramfis, to lead the hunt for the invaders, and soon they were captured. The leaders of the invasion were taken aboard a Dominican Air Force plane and then pushed out in midair, falling to their deaths.[citation needed]

In turn, in August 1959, Johnny Abbes attempted to support an anti-Castro group led by Escambray near Trinidad, Cuba. The attempt, however, was thwarted when Cuban troops surprised a plane he had sent as it unloaded its cargo.[44]

By the late 1950s, opposition to Trujillo's regime was building to a fever pitch. Many clamored for democratization. The Trujillo regime responded with greater repression. The Military Intelligence Service (SIM) secret police, led by Johnny Abbes, remained as ubiquitous as before. Other nations ostracized the Dominican Republic, compounding the dictator's paranoia.[citation needed]

Trujillo began to interfere more in the domestic affairs of neighboring countries. He expressed great contempt for Venezuela's president Rómulo Betancourt. An established and outspoken opponent of Trujillo, Betancourt associated with Dominicans who had plotted against the dictator. Trujillo developed an obsessive personal hatred of Betancourt and supported numerous plots by Venezuelan exiles to overthrow him. This pattern of intervention led the Venezuelan government to take its case against Trujillo to the Organization of American States (OAS). This infuriated Trujillo, who ordered his agents to plant a bomb in Betancourt's car. On 24 June 1960, while Betancourt was driving through the streets of Caracas, Venezuela, during the annual Army Day parade, a powerful bomb exploded in his motorcade. The bomb had been placed in a green Oldsmobile parked near the parade route and contained 65 kilos of TNT. The blast exploded right under the car carrying Betancourt and his party. The car was sent flying across the street. One person in the auto was killed, and Betancourt suffered severe burns to his hands.[45]

The Betancourt incident inflamed world opinion against Trujillo. Outraged OAS members voted unanimously to sever diplomatic relations with his government and impose economic sanctions on the Dominican Republic. The brutal murder on Friday, 25 November 1960, of the three Mirabal sisters, Patria, María Teresa and Minerva, who opposed Trujillo's dictatorship, further increased discontent with his repressive rule. The dictator had become an embarrassment to the United States, and relations became especially strained after the Betancourt incident.[citation needed]

Trujillo's "central arch" was his instinct for power.[46] This was coupled with an intense desire for money, which he recognized as a source of and support for power. Up at four in the morning, he exercised, studied the newspaper, read many reports, and completed papers before breakfast. At the office by nine, he continued his work, and took lunch by noon. After a walk, he continued to work until 7:30 pm. After dinner, he attended functions, held discussions, or was driven around incognito in the city "observing and remembering."[46] Until Santo Domingo's National Palace was built in 1947, he worked out of the Casas Reales, the colonial-era Viceregal center of administration. Today the building is a museum; on display are his desk and chair, along with a massive collection of arms and armor that he bought. He was methodical, punctual, secretive, and guarded; he had no true friends, only associates and acquaintances. For his associates, his actions towards them were unpredictable.[citation needed]

Postage stamps honoring family members

Trujillo and his family amassed enormous wealth. He acquired cattle lands on a grand scale, and went into meat and milk production, operations that soon evolved into monopolies. Salt, sugar, tobacco, lumber, and the lottery were other industries that he or his family members dominated. Family members also received positions within the government and the army, including one of Trujillo's sons who was made a colonel in the Dominican Army when he was only four years old.[Note 8][Note 9] Two of Trujillo's brothers, Héctor and José Arismendy, also held positions in his government. José Arismendy Trujillo oversaw creation of the main radio station, La Voz Dominicana, and later the television station, the fourth in the Caribbean.[citation needed]

By 1937 Trujillo's annual income was about $1.5 million ($26 million in 2017);[48] at the time of his death the state took over 111 Trujillo-owned companies. His love of fine and ostentatious clothing was displayed in elaborate uniforms and suits, of which he collected almost two thousand.[49] Fond of neckties, he amassed a collection of over ten thousand. Trujillo doused himself with perfume and liked gossip.[50]
His sexual appetite was rapacious, and he preferred mulatto women with full bodies, later tending to rape "very young" women.[46] Many who sought his favors procured women for him, and later, he had an official on his palace staff to organize the sessions. Encounters typically lasted for one or two sessions, but he often kept favorites for longer terms. If women resisted, Trujillo pressured their families to get his way.[46]

Trujillo with his second wife Bienvenida in 1934.

Trujillo was married three times and kept other women as mistresses. On 13 August 1913, Trujillo married Aminta Ledesma Lachapelle. On 30 March 1927, Trujillo married Bienvenida Ricardo Martínez, a girl from Monte Cristi and the daughter of Buenaventura Ricardo Heureaux. A year later he met María de los Angeles Martínez Alba "la españolita", and had an affair with her. He divorced Bienvenida in 1935 and married Martínez. A year later he had a daughter with Bienvenida, named Odette Trujillo Ricardo.[citation needed]

In 1937, Trujillo met Lina Lovatón Pittaluga,[51] an upper-class debutante with whom he had two children, Yolanda in 1939, and Rafael, born on 20 June 1943.[citation needed]

In spite of Trujillo's indifference to the game of baseball, the dictator invited many black American players to the Dominican Republic, where they received good pay for playing on first-class, un-segregated teams. The great Negro League star Satchel Paige pitched for Los Dragones of Ciudad Trujillo, a team organized by Trujillo. Paige later claimed, jokingly, that his guards positioned themselves "like a firing squad" to encourage him to pitch well. Los Dragones won the 1937 Dominican championship at Estadio Trujillo in Ciudad Trujillo.[52]

Trujillo was energetic and fit. He was generally quite healthy, but suffered from chronic lower urinary infections and, later, prostate problems. In 1934, Dr. Georges Marion was called from Paris to perform three urologic procedures on Trujillo.[53]

While Trujillo was nominally a Roman Catholic, his devotion was limited to a perfunctory role in public affairs; he placed faith in local folk religion.[46]

He was popularly known as "El Jefe" ("The Chief") or "El Benefactor" ("The Benefactor"), but was privately referred to as Chapitas ("Bottlecaps") because of his indiscriminate wearing of medals. Dominican children emulated Trujillo by constructing toy medals from bottle caps. He was also known as "El Chivo" ("The Goat").[citation needed]

"Memorial to the Heroes of the 30th of May", a 1993 sculpture by Silvano Lora along Autopista 30 de Mayo where Trujillo was shot

On Tuesday, 30 May 1961, Trujillo was shot and killed when his blue 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air was ambushed on a road outside the Dominican capital.[56] He was the victim of an ambush plotted by a number of men, among them General Juan Tomás Díaz, Pedro Livio Cedeño, Antonio de la Maza, Amado García Guerrero and General Antonio Imbert Barrera.[57] The plotters, however, failed to take control as the later-to-be-executed General José ("Pupo") Román betrayed his co-conspirators by his inactivity, and contingency plans had not been made.[58] On the other side, Johnny Abbes, Roberto Figueroa Carrión, and the Trujillo family, put the SIM to work to hunt the members of the plot, and brought back Ramfis Trujillo from Paris to step into his father's shoes. The response by SIM was swift and brutal. Hundreds of suspects were detained, many tortured. On 18 November the last executions took place when six of the conspirators were executed in the "Hacienda María Massacre".[59] Imbert was the only one of the seven assassins who survived the manhunt.[60] A co-conspirator named Luis Amiama Tio also survived.[citation needed]

Trujillo's funeral was that of a statesman with the long procession ending in his hometown of San Cristóbal, where his body was first buried. President Joaquín Balaguer gave the eulogy. The efforts of the Trujillo family to keep control of the country ultimately failed. The military uprising on 19 November of the Rebellion of the Pilots and the threat of American intervention set the final stage and ended the Trujillo regime.[61] Ramfis tried to flee with his father's body upon his boat Angelita, but was turned back. Balaguer allowed Ramfis to leave the country and to relocate his father's body to Paris. There the remains were interred in the Cimetière du Père Lachaise on 14 August 1964, and six years later moved to the El Pardo cemetery near Madrid, Spain.[62]

Authored by Valerie Moolman, the book describes the attempts of The Terrible Ones (the widows of murdered Trujillo opponents), Cuban fidelistas and Chinese communist forces to locate and recover US$100 million in gold and precious stones accumulated by Trujillo during his dictatorship.

Authored by Frederick Forsyth, the book fictitiously attributes "credit" for this assassination to the titular assassin. An English arms dealer, suspected of being "the Jackal", had a meeting with Trujillo's chief of police in Ciudad Trujillo on 30 May 1961, trying to sell the police British surplus submachine guns. However, Trujillo is assassinated that same day, and the arms dealer is forced to flee the Dominican Republic.

A book by Mario Vargas Llosa, set in the Dominican Republic and portraying the assassination of the Dominican dictator, and its aftermath, from two distinct standpoints a generation apart: during and immediately after the assassination itself, in May 1961; and thirty-five years later, in 1996.

Julia Alvarez, a Dominican-American writer, wrote this young-adult novel about Anita, a twelve-year-old girl in the Dominican Republic in 1960, who realizes that life under the reign of Trujillo is much darker and more dangerous than she had previously known.

Film

El Misterio Galíndez - The Galindez File

2003

Gerardo Herrero directed El Misterio Galíndez, a movie about Jesús de Galíndez Suárez, activist of the PNV party and Basque diplomat who disappeared in 1956; allegedly because of his opposition to Trujillo's regime.

Written by Junot Díaz, a Santo Domingo-born American, wrote this Pulitzer Prize–winning book about a Dominican-American family. The book is a fictional account of the family's misfortunes interwoven with a recounting of the atrocities of Trujillo's regime, some of which are indirectly linked to the family's fate, following them like a curse or fukú across the generations.

Film

Code Name: Butterflies

2009

Directed by Cecilia Domeyko Film about the life and death of the Mirabal sisters with interviews with people involved, and recreations of key events.

Directed by Juan Delancer and Trujillo played by Juan Fernández de Alarcon. The film focuses on Minerva Mirabal and tells the true story of how she and her sisters dared to stand up against dictator Rafael Trujillo, and were assassinated in 1960 as a result. The film further details how this crime led to the assassination of Trujillo.

^Jésus de Galindez points out in the introduction of his book La Era de Trujillo that "In this summer of 1955, half the Latin American republics are ruled by dictatorships, most of them of the military type".[9]

^He was born out of wedlock, the son of José Trujillo Monagas, a Spaniard who worked for the secret police during the 4-year Spanish occupation of the Dominican Republic in the early 1860s. He was later chief of police of Havana, Cuba, before returning to Spain after the Spanish–American War. José (Pepito) Trujillo's mother was Silveria Valdez Méndez, of San Cristobal.[12]

^"anyone of African descent found incapable of pronouncing correctly, that is, to the complete satisfaction of the sadistic examiners, became a condemned individual. This killing is recorded as having a death toll reaching thirty thousand innocent souls, Haitians as well as Dominicans."[37]

1.
Generalissimo
–
Generalissimo is a military rank of the highest degree, superior to field marshal and other five-star ranks in the countries where they are used. The word generalissimo is Italian and is the superlative of generale. Notable examples of generalissimos include John J, the word generalissimo is an Italian term, from generale, plus the superlative suffix -issimo, itself from Latin -issimus, meaning utmost, to the highest grade. Historically this rank was given to an officer leading an entire army or the entire armed forces of a nation. Other usage of the rank has been for the commander of the armies of several allied powers. The rank Generalissimus of the Soviet Union would have been a generalissimo, commander-in-chief Field marshal Highest military ranks Generalissimus of the Soviet Union Caudillo General of the armies Admiralissimo

2.
Santo Domingo
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Santo Domingo, officially Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic and the largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean by population. In 2010, its population was counted as 965,040, the city is coterminous with the boundaries of the Distrito Nacional, itself bordered on three sides by Santo Domingo Province. Santo Domingo is the site of the first university, cathedral, castle, monastery, the citys Colonial Zone was declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Santo Domingo was called Ciudad Trujillo, from 1936 to 1961, after the Dominican Republics dictator, Rafael Trujillo, following his assassination, the city resumed its original designation. Santo Domingo is the cultural, financial, political, commercial and industrial center of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo also serves as the chief seaport of the country. The citys harbor at the mouth of the Ozama River accommodates the largest vessels, temperatures are high year round, with a cool breeze around winter time. At the time, the territory consisted of five chiefdoms, Marién, Maguá, Maguana, Jaragua. These were ruled respectively by caciques Guacanagarix, Guarionex, Caonabo, Bohechío, dating from 1496, when the Spanish settled on the island, and officially from 5 August 1498, Santo Domingo became the oldest European city in the Americas. Bartholomew Columbus founded the settlement and named it La Nueva Isabela, in 1495 it was renamed Santo Domingo, in honor of Saint Dominic. Santo Domingo came to be known as the Gateway to the Caribbean, in June 1502, Santo Domingo was destroyed by a major hurricane, and the new Governor Nicolás de Ovando had it rebuilt on a different site on the other side of the Ozama River. The original layout of the city and a portion of its defensive wall can still be appreciated today throughout the Colonial Zone. Diego Colon arrived in 1509, assuming the powers of Viceroy, in 1512, Ferdinand established a Real Audiencia with Juan Ortiz de Matienzo, Marcelo de Villalobos, and Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon appointed as judges of appeal. In 1514, Pedro Ibanez de Ibarra arrived with the Laws of Burgos, rodrigo de Alburquerque was named repartidor de indios and soon named visitadores to enforce the laws. In 1586, Francis Drake captured the city and held it for ransom, an expedition sent by Oliver Cromwell in 1655 attacked the city of Santo Domingo, but was defeated. The English troops withdrew and took the less guarded colony of Jamaica, in 1697, the Treaty of Ryswick included the acknowledgement by Spain of Frances dominion over the Western third of the island, now Haiti. From 1795 to 1822 the city changed several times along with the colony it headed. The city was ceded to France in 1795 after years of struggles, it was captured by Haitian rebels in 1801, recovered by France in 1802. In 1821 Santo Domingo became the capital of an independent nation after the Criollo bourgeois within the country, led by José Núñez de Cáceres, the nation was unified with Haiti just two months later

3.
Caudillo
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A caudillo is a type of personalist leader wielding political power. There is no definition of caudillo, which is often used interchangeably with dictator. The term is associated with Spain, and with Spanish America after virtually all of that region won independence in the early nineteenth century. The term is used pejoratively by critics of a regime. However, Spains General Francisco Franco proudly took the title as his own, during, Spanish censors during his rule went after publishers who applied the term to Latin American strongmen. Caudillos exercise of power is a form considered authoritarian, most societies have had personalist leaders at times, but Latin America has had many more, the majority of whom were not self-described caudillos. However, scholars have applied the term to a variety of Latin American leaders, the roots of caudillismo may be tied to the framework of rule in medieval and early modern Spain during the Reconquest from the Moors. During the colonial era, the Spanish crown asserted its power, historian John Lynch argues that the rise of caudillos in Spanish America is rooted not in the distant Spanish past but in the immediate context of the Spanish American wars of independence. Those wars threw off colonial rule and left a vacuum in the early nineteenth century. Caudillos were very influential in the history of Spanish America and have a legacy that has influenced political movements in the modern era, since Spanish American independence in the early nineteenth century, the region has been noted for its number of caudillos and the duration of their rule. Brazils transition to independence was the establishment of the Brazilian Empire, weak nation-states in Spanish America fostered the continuation of caudillismo from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth century. The formation of Mexicos Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1929 effectively ended caudillismo there, men characterized as caudillos have ruled in Cuba, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Argentina, and Chile. Caudillos have been the subject of literature in Spanish America, Latin America is not unique in having strong leaders emerge during times of turmoil. Historian John Lynch states that “Before 1810 the caudillo was unknown… The caudillo entered history as a local hero whom larger events promoted to a military chieftain. ”He gained in power by his success as a military leader. In a rural area that lacked any institutions of the state, and where the environment was one of violence and anarchy and his local control as a strongman needed to be maintained by assuring the loyalty of his followers, so his bestowing material rewards reinforced his own position. Caudillos could also maintain their position by protecting the interests of regional elites, a local strongman who built a regional base could aspire to becoming a national caudillo, taking control of the state. In this situation, caudillos could bestow patronage on a large retinue of clients, in general, caudillos’ power benefited elites. But these strongmen were also mediators between elites and the classes, recruiting them into the power base, but also restraining them from achieving power themselves

4.
Cult of personality
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Sociologist Max Weber developed a tripartite classification of authority, the cult of personality holds parallels with what Weber defined as charismatic authority. A cult of personality is similar to divinization, except that it is established by media and propaganda usually by the state. The term cult of personality probably appeared in English around 1800–1850, along with the French, at first it had no political connotations but was instead closely related to the Romantic cult of genius. The political use of the phrase came first in a letter from Karl Marx to German political worker, Wilhelm Blos,10 November 1877, robert Service notes that a more accurate translation of the Russian культ личности is the cult of the individual. Throughout history, monarchs and other heads of state were almost always held in enormous reverence, through the principle of the divine right of kings, in medieval Europe for example, rulers were said to hold office by the will of God. Ancient Egypt, Japan, the Inca, the Aztecs, Tibet, Siam, the spread of democratic and secular ideas in Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries made it increasingly difficult for monarchs to preserve this aura. It was from these circumstances in the 20th century that the personality cults arose. Often these cults are a form of political religion, personality cults were first described in relation to Totalitarianism regimes that sought to alter or transform society according to radical ideas. Not all dictatorships foster personality cults, while not all personality cults are practiced in dictatorships, for example, during the Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime, images of dictator Pol Pot were rarely seen in public, and his identity was under dispute abroad until after his fall from power. The same applied to numerous Eastern European communist regimes following World War II

5.
Caracas
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Caracas, officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital, the center of the Greater Caracas Area, and the largest city of Venezuela. Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the part of the country. Terrain suitable for building lies between 760 and 910 m above sea level, the valley is close to the Caribbean Sea, separated from the coast by a steep 2, 200-metre-high mountain range, Cerro El Ávila, to the south there are more hills and mountains. Libertador holds many of the government buildings and is the Capital District, the Distrito Capital had a population of 2,013,366 as of 2011, while the Metropolitan District of Caracas was estimated at 3,273,863 as of 2013. The Metropolitan Region of Caracas has an population of 5,243,301. Businesses that are located in the city include service companies, banks and it has a largely service-based economy, apart from some industrial activity in its metropolitan area. The Caracas Stock Exchange and Petróleos de Venezuela are headquartered in Caracas, PDVSA is the largest company in Venezuela. Caracas is also Venezuelas cultural capital, with restaurants, theaters, museums. Some of the tallest skyscrapers in Latin America are located in Caracas, in 2015, Venezuela and its capital, Caracas, had the highest per capita murder rates in the world, with 119 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Most murders and other violent crimes go unsolved, at the time of the founding of the city in 1567, the valley of Caracas was populated by indigenous peoples. Francisco Fajardo, the son of a Spanish captain and a Guaiqueri cacica, fajardos settlement did not last long. It was destroyed by natives of the led by Terepaima. This was the last rebellion on the part of the natives, on 25 July 1567, Captain Diego de Losada laid the foundations of the city of Santiago de León de Caracas. The foundation −1567 – I take possession of land in the name of God. In 1577 Caracas became the capital of the Spanish Empires Venezuela Province under Governor Juan de Pimentel, during the 17th century, the coast of Venezuela was frequently raided by pirates. With the coastal mountains as a barrier, Caracas was relatively immune to such attacks, encountering little resistance, the invaders sacked and set fire to the town after a failed ransom negotiation. As the cocoa cultivation and exports under the Compañía Guipuzcoana de Caracas grew in importance, in 1777, Caracas became the capital of the Captaincy General of Venezuela. José María España and Manuel Gual led a revolution aimed at independence

6.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange

7.
Mexico
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Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a federal republic in the southern half of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States, to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean, to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometers, Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area, Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district that is also its capital and most populous city. Other metropolises include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, pre-Columbian Mexico was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Three centuries later, this territory became Mexico following recognition in 1821 after the colonys Mexican War of Independence. The tumultuous post-independence period was characterized by instability and many political changes. The Mexican–American War led to the cession of the extensive northern borderlands, one-third of its territory. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, the dictatorship was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the countrys current political system. Mexico has the fifteenth largest nominal GDP and the eleventh largest by purchasing power parity, the Mexican economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement partners, especially the United States. Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and it is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country by several analysts. By 2050, Mexico could become the fifth or seventh largest economy. The country is considered both a power and middle power, and is often identified as an emerging global power. Due to its culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas. Mexico is a country, ranking fourth in the world by biodiversity. In 2015 it was the 9th most visited country in the world, Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus and the Pacific Alliance. Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely, the Valley of Mexico, and its people, the Mexica and this became the future State of Mexico as a division of New Spain prior to independence. It is generally considered to be a toponym for the valley became the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance as a result. After New Spain won independence from Spain, representatives decided to name the new country after its capital and this was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan

8.
Hispanic
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The term Hispanic broadly refers to the people, nations, and cultures that have a historical link to Spain. It commonly applies to countries once colonized by the Spanish Empire in the Americas and Asia, particularly the countries of Latin America and the Philippines. It could be argued that the term should apply to all Spanish-speaking cultures or countries and it is difficult to label a nation or culture with one term, such as Hispanic, as the ethnicities, customs, traditions, and art forms vary greatly by country and region. The Spanish language and Spanish culture are the main traditions, the term Hispanic derives from Latin Hispanicus, the adjectival derivation of Latin Hispania and Hispanus/Hispanos, ultimately probably of Celtiberian origin. In English the word is attested from the 16th century, the words Spain, Spanish, and Spaniard are of the same etymology as Hispanus, ultimately. Hispanus was the Latin name given to a person from Hispania during Roman rule, in English, the term Hispano-Roman is sometimes used. The Hispano-Romans were composed of people from different indigenous tribes. A number of men, such as Trajan, Hadrian. Hispano-Roman is used to refer to the culture and people of Hispania, Hispanic is used to refer to modern Spain, to the Spanish language, and to the Spanish-speaking nations of the world and particularly the Americas. Spanish is used to refer to the people, nationality, culture, language, Spaniard is used to refer to the people of Spain. Hispania was the Roman name for the territory of the Iberian Peninsula. Initially, this territory was divided into two provinces, Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior, in 27 B. C, Hispania Ulterior was divided into two new provinces, Hispania Baetica and Hispania Lusitania, while Hispania Citerior was renamed Hispania Tarraconensis. This division of Hispania explains the usage of the singular and plural forms used to refer to the peninsula and this revival of the old Roman concept in the Middle Ages appears to have originated in Provençal, and was first documented at the end of the 11th century. In the Council of Constance, the four kingdoms shared one vote, the word Lusitanian, relates to Lusitania or Portugal, also in reference to the Lusitanians, possibly one of the first Indo-European tribes to settle in Europe. From this tribes name had derived the name of the Roman province of Lusitania, the terms Spain and the Spains were not interchangeable. Spain was a territory, home to several kingdoms, with separate governments, laws, languages, religions, and customs. Spain was not an entity until much later, and when referring to the Middle Ages. The term The Spains referred specifically to a collective of juridico-political units, first the Christian kingdoms, although colloquially and literally the expression King of Spain or King of the Spains was already widespread, it did not refer to a unified nation-state

9.
Caribbean
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The Caribbean is a region that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands and the surrounding coasts. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, situated largely on the Caribbean Plate, the region comprises more than 700 islands, islets, reefs and cays. These islands generally form island arcs that delineate the eastern and northern edges of the Caribbean Sea, in a wider sense, the mainland countries of Belize, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana are often included due to their political and cultural ties with the region. Geopolitically, the Caribbean islands are usually regarded as a subregion of North America and are organized into 30 territories including sovereign states, overseas departments, and dependencies. From December 15,1954, to October 10,2010, there was a known as the Netherlands Antilles composed of five states. The West Indies cricket team continues to represent many of those nations, the region takes its name from that of the Caribs, an ethnic group present in the Lesser Antilles and parts of adjacent South America at the time of the Spanish conquest. The two most prevalent pronunciations of Caribbean are KARR-ə-BEE-ən, with the accent on the third syllable. The former pronunciation is the older of the two, although the variant has been established for over 75 years. It has been suggested that speakers of British English prefer KARR-ə-BEE-ən while North American speakers more typically use kə-RIB-ee-ən, usage is split within Caribbean English itself. The word Caribbean has multiple uses and its principal ones are geographical and political. The Caribbean can also be expanded to include territories with strong cultural and historical connections to slavery, European colonisation, the United Nations geoscheme for the Americas accords the Caribbean as a distinct region within the Americas. Physiographically, the Caribbean region is mainly a chain of islands surrounding the Caribbean Sea, to the north, the region is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico, the Straits of Florida and the Northern Atlantic Ocean, which lies to the east and northeast. To the south lies the coastline of the continent of South America, politically, the Caribbean may be centred on socio-economic groupings found in the region. For example, the known as the Caribbean Community contains the Co-operative Republic of Guyana. Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which are in the Atlantic Ocean, are members of the Caribbean Community. The Commonwealth of the Bahamas is also in the Atlantic and is a member of the Caribbean Community. According to the ACS, the population of its member states is 227 million people. The geography and climate in the Caribbean region varies, Some islands in the region have relatively flat terrain of non-volcanic origin and these islands include Aruba, Barbados, Bonaire, the Cayman Islands, Saint Croix, the Bahamas, and Antigua

10.
Spaniards
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Within Spain there are a number of nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the countrys complex history and diverse culture. There are several commonly spoken languages, most notably Basque. There are many populations outside Spain with ancestors who emigrated from Spain, the Roman Republic conquered Iberia during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. As a result of Roman colonization, the majority of languages, with the exception of Basque. The Germanic Vandals and Suebi, with part of the Iranian Alans under King Respendial conquered the peninsula in 409 AD. The Iberian Peninsula was conquered and brought under the rule of the Arab Umayyads in 711 and by the Berber North African dynasties the Almohads, in the early 16th century the Kingdom of Navarre was also conquered. In parallel, a wave of emigration began to the Americas began with over 16 million people emigrating to the Americas during the colonial period. In the post-colonial period, a further 3.5 million Spanish left for the Americas, particularly Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, as a result, Spanish-descendants in Latin America number in the hundreds of millions. Spain is home to one of the largest communities of Romani people, the Spanish Roma, which belong to the Iberian Kale subgroup, are a formerly-nomadic community, which spread across Western Asia, North Africa, and Europe, first reaching Spain in the 15th century. The population of Spain is became increasingly diverse due to recent immigration, the earliest modern humans inhabiting Spain are believed to have been Neolithic peoples who may have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as 35, 000–40,000 years ago. In more recent times the Iberians are believed to have arrived or developed in the region between the 4th millennium BC and the 3rd millennium BC, initially settling along the Mediterranean coast, celts settled in Spain during the Iron Age. Some of those tribes in North-central Spain, which had contact with the Iberians, are called Celtiberians. In addition, a known as the Tartessians and later Turdetanians inhabited southwestern Spain. The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians successively founded trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast over a period of several centuries, the Second Punic War between the Carthaginians and Romans was fought mainly in what is now Spain and Portugal. The Roman Republic conquered Iberia during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC transformed most of the region into a series of Latin-speaking provinces, hispania emerged as an important part of the Roman Empire and produced notable historical figures such as Trajan, Hadrian, Seneca and Quintilian. The Germanic Vandals and Suebi, with part of the Iranian Alans under King Respendial, the Suebi became the first Germanic kingdom to convert officially to Roman Catholicism in 447 AD. under king Rechiar. After two centuries of domination by the Visigothic Kingdom, the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by a Muslim force under Tariq Bin Ziyad in 711 and this army consisted mainly ethnic Berbers from the Ghomara tribe, which were reinforced by Arabs from Syria once the conquest was complete. Muslim Iberia became part of the Umayyad Caliphate and would be known as Al-Andalus, the Berbers of Al Andalus revolted as early as 740 AD, halting Arab expansion across the Pyrenees into France